Displaying post 1 to 50 of 758
…if you are the single newspaper in San Francisco or Kansas City or St. Louis, you are just highly constrained about how rigorous you can be in the accuracy of your reporting. Because the whole model is: You are appealing to everybody. Because the whole model is: You are appealing to everybody. … That's why the existence of an independent media sector is so important.
Talking Points Memo is one of the more notable successes in independent journalism and using blogs as a format for journalism. It has broken at least a couple of stories that got picked up by the mainstream press: The
Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, and the
U.S. Attorneys firing scandal. It's grown from being a
one-man shop in 2000 to a staff of ten today.
Josh Marshall talks about how it came to be.
posted to MetaFilter by adamrice
at 7:13 AM on October 7, 2008
(32 comments)
As most women know, nylon stockings don't last. They run, they snag, they rip, and they can't be mended. And they take 40 to 50 years to decompose in a landfill. I was sure as I began researching this post that there must be some great pantyhose crafting and art ideas out there. But the results were, um, mixed. If you are into
weaving, you can make some wall hangings or rugs from nylons. If you're a
Klondike Kate type who sews, you can make a skirt. If you work in a corporate environment but want to keep your edge, you can abide by your company's dress code AND sport
temporary tattoos. If you're a crafty bride-to-be,
you can make flowers or
dragonflies for wedding decorations. If you're into the less practical kind of art, you can create
semi-wearable pantyhose art, or construct
pantyhose art installations like artist Mary Nicollet. You can even make
pantyhose dolls, and
stick them in a jar if you want to.
Just be prepared for the fact that most people will never understand why you'd want to. But beware, because pantyhose arts and crafts are either underexplored or instrinsically strange, and can go from “interesting” or “kind of cute” to “bizarre” and “kind of disturbing” faster than a run can make its way from your thigh to your toes.
posted to MetaFilter by orange swan
at 5:23 PM on October 1, 2008
(38 comments)
What was it like during the Great Depression?
University of Oregon Economist Mark Thoma links to interviews by Studs Terkel which deal with the Great Depression. All interviews in Real Player format. Interviewees:
Gardner C. Means, economic adviser to FDR.
Peggy Terry, a migrant farm worker (my favorite interview).
Virginia Durr, civil rights activist.
Ed Paulsen, dayworker.
Emma Tiller, cook.
Pauline Kael (yes,
that Pauline Kael).
Mary Owsley, farm worker. Much more in the
Hard Times section of the wonderful
Studs Terkel website, which has been featured twice previously on MetaFilter (
1,
2)
[via Obsidian Wings]
posted to MetaFilter by Kattullus
at 12:05 AM on September 29, 2008
(30 comments)
A
private FDIC?
The Certificate of Deposit Account Registry Service, or
CDARS, is a way to conveniently spread bank accounts across multiple banks. CDARS, run by privately held Promontory Interfinancial Network, offers its customers
up to $50 million of deposit insurance, or exactly 500 times single account limit mandated by the FDIC. Promontory does this by arranging to distribute client funds nationwide in $100K increments to over 2,300 banks. Promontory is nothing if not well connected: while founders Mark Jacobsen
previously served as Chief of Staff at the FDIC, co-founders Alan Blinder was
Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve and Eugene Ludwig
was Comptroller of the Currency, several former members of the FDIC currently serve on Promotory's board.
Not surprisingly, some folks are openly critical of Promotory, some going so far as to state
"It undermines a lot of the safeguards around the FDIC deposit fund."
posted to MetaFilter by Mutant
at 2:47 AM on September 26, 2008
(64 comments)
One hundred years ago today, September 23, 1908, the Chicago Cubs played the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. In one of the best seasons in baseball history, the two teams were in a hot pennant race - separated by one game with two weeks left in the season. What happened next is one of
the most famous blunders (
if it even was a blunder) in baseball history.
posted to MetaFilter by AgentRocket
at 8:53 AM on September 23, 2008
(30 comments)
"'It is terrifying, it is meant to be,' said John Taylor, the creator and funder of an extraordinary
new clock to be unveiled tomorrow by Stephen Hawking at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge. 'Basically I view time as not on your side....'"
The Corpus Clock. (
via)
posted to MetaFilter by Kronos_to_Earth
at 8:15 AM on September 19, 2008
(97 comments)
GetBodySmart.com
is a wonderful and remarkably complete resource to learn about the systems that keep our body running, including the
skeletal ,
nervous and even
urinary systems. What's more amazing is that it's all created by one man in his spare time and for no gain of his own. Read his mission statement
here.
posted to MetaFilter by ignorantguru
at 3:56 PM on September 17, 2008
(24 comments)
Presidential Crimes: Moving on is not an option.
"In deciding about legal redress, we need to be clear about the large stakes in our decision. The very multiplicity of the apparent crimes, the sheer array of arguably broken laws, is dizzying. But that multiplicity must be faced, for in it we will see that what got in President Bush’s way was not any one law but the rule of law itself. It is the rule of law that has been put in jeopardy by a project of executive domination; it is the rule of law that will continue to be in peril; and it is only, therefore, by addressing the crimes through legal instruments—through a formal, legal arena, and not simply through the electoral repudiation of bad policy—that the grave and widespread damage stands a chance of being repaired."
posted to MetaFilter by homunculus
at 2:55 PM on September 8, 2008
(97 comments)
'There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed' David Simon on
The Escalating Breakdown Of Urban Society Across The US
posted to MetaFilter by fearfulsymmetry
at 2:51 PM on September 6, 2008
(52 comments)
"Jesus?" he murmured, "Jesus -- of Nazareth?..."
Pontius Pilate,
prefect of
Judea, is
the only historical figure named in the
Nicene Creed -- Coptic
saint or
eternally damned, his role in the
greatest story ever told has been debated by many of history's greatest minds:
St Augustine,
Dante Alighieri,
Tintoretto,
John Ruskin,
Mikhail Bulgakov,
Monty Python. Unfortunately,
there is very little historical evidence about him. His role in the
death of a
certain charismatic
Galilean healer and
apocalyptic preacher
is still being debated today by
theologians and historians
alike. He is also, of course, the main character of
The Procurator of
Judea, the classic short story (complete text in main link) by
Anatole France. (France's magnificent story has lately been tragically neglected by publishers, even if the author was one of his era's most acclaimed writers in the world -- he won the Nobel Prize in 1921 over Shaw, Yeats, Joyce, Thomas Hardy, D.H. Lawrence, and Proust, and when he died in 1924,
hundreds of thousands of people followed his funeral procession through Paris). These last 2,000 years of fascination with
Pilatus can be explained, some argue...
(more inside, for those unwilling to wash their hands of this post)
posted to MetaFilter by matteo
at 11:26 AM on June 24, 2004
(37 comments)
Fox,
the BBC and
CNN have all revealed that Republican US presidential candidate John McCain has picked Alaskan Governor
Sarah Palin as his running mate on his 72nd birthday on the eve of the start of
Republican National Convention. Despite being wildly popular in Alaska, Palin has recently been involved in
an investigation over whether she dismissed a public safety commissioner because he refused to dismiss her former brother-in-law.
posted to MetaFilter by HaloMan
at 7:52 AM on August 29, 2008
(5604 comments)
Crunk/Southern Club style head banging high energy hip hop track. All vocals by my normal collaberator, Juicy Karkass, and his buddy Savior of
Animal Farm
posted to MeFi Music by mediocre
at 5:19 AM on August 1, 2008
(185 comments)
Virtual Vaudeville
[shockwave] Watch a 3D simulation of legendary comedian Frank Bush in a vaudeville performance from a variety of perspectives. Switch between any of eight perspectives at any time and read the extensive hypermedia notes to gain a richer understanding of the performance in its historical context.
posted to MetaFilter by tellurian
at 8:46 PM on September 4, 2008
(11 comments)
Like so many other people, you have a stack of old t-shirts you never wear. Perhaps you've gotten beyond wearing obscene slogans or Strawberry Shortcake logos. Or you feel it's time to retire that “Team Hillary” shirt. Or your favourite old shirt no longer fits over the impressive pecs/food hump you've acquired since high school. Or you've had it with MeFi and you want a way to repurpose/savage your MeFi blue t-shirt. No need to be at a loss! You might just settle for making a
different style of
t-shirt, but you can also use those t-shirts to make
diapers for your baby,
clothes for your
toddler, or adult-sized
undies,
skirts or
dresses. Or a
bikini. Just beware of saggage.
I mean, of the bikini, after it gets water-logged. You also might make tote bags or pillows, car seat covers, baby wipes, or dusters. If you get really ambitious, you can
make a t-shirt quilt, taking inspiration from the
many examples on the net. If I haven't given you enough ideas, you can turn to the ever
authoritative and
exhaustive AskMe, or you can do some
further reading on the
topic. Just don't get so carried away that you wind up having to go to work topless tomorrow.
Unless, of course, your career path requires that anyway.
posted to MetaFilter by orange swan
at 4:52 PM on September 1, 2008
(25 comments)
Make me a Master Tailor: I know how to plug in a sewing machine and use a cloth ruler. Assuming nothing more, where do I begin...
posted to Ask Metafilter by Hollowman
at 12:11 PM on August 18, 2008
(11 comments)
Losing the War,
an insightful memoir by writer and journalist
Lee Sandlin.
Note: It's not about Iraq. Or is it? "A year later, in the second winter of the invasion, as the army inched forward on a final, desperate push into Stalingrad, a daring joke began making the rounds in Germany, a mock dispatch from Stalingrad HQ: 'Today our troops captured a two-room apartment with kitchen, toilet, and bathroom. They have succeeded in retaining two-thirds of it despite fierce counterattacks by the enemy.' Few of the tellers realized just how accurate this description was.
John Keegan, in his book
The Second World War, quotes a German officer's description of the fighting in the city: 'We have fought for fifteen days for a single house with mortars, grenades, machine-guns and bayonets. Already by the third day fifty-four German corpses are strewn in the cellars, on the landings, and the staircases. The front is a corridor between burnt-out rooms; it is the thin ceiling between two floors.' This was where Hitler's vision of the world finally foundered. After striding like a colossus over a continent, the German army was in the end unable to force its way up a flight of stairs."
posted to MetaFilter by digaman
at 1:40 PM on December 28, 2004
(20 comments)
What is this study? A study that found that competent people rate their own capabilities pretty accurately, whereas less competent people tend to over-estimate their capabilities.
posted to Ask Metafilter by tippiedog
at 3:00 PM on August 17, 2008
(6 comments)
The Afterlife of American Clothes. "From 2003 to 2007 [filmmakers Hanna Rose Shell and Vanessa Bertozzi] visited rag yards in Miami, dug through archives in London and Washington, D.C., and traveled to Haiti to see the international secondhand markets for themselves. The result is the recent documentary
Secondhand (Pepe), which explores the global trade in used clothing."
posted to MetaFilter by Knappster
at 12:35 PM on August 17, 2008
(12 comments)
Animated Divots
― comprehensive resource on the history of animation including
important events such as new techniques, studio history, and pioneers in the field. Also includes a
bibliography of books and journals and
filmographies of significant animators, directors, and studios.
posted to MetaFilter by netbros
at 8:34 AM on August 11, 2008
(1 comment)
How do I figure out how nutritious my meals are?
posted to Ask Metafilter by fishmasta
at 5:54 PM on August 10, 2008
(6 comments)
Realist Fiction by
George Saunders:
"Last night, in a biker bar, I overheard two men discussing what distinguished “realist” fiction from more “experimental” work. Although one shouldn’t generalize, I never expect bikers to be literary critics. Well, these were literary critics, and good ones—in fact, they’d bought their “hogs” with royalties from a book they’d co-written,
Feminine Desire In Jane Austen."
Experimental Fiction by
George Saunders:
"Experimental fiction is the art of telling a story in which certain aspects of reality have been exaggerated or distorted in such a way as to put the reader off the story and make him go watch a television show."
posted to MetaFilter by plexi
at 8:46 AM on August 5, 2008
(37 comments)
What books or other resources are available that speak to the things that Jesus taught and how he encouraged his followers to actually live? Things like his central message of peace, love, non-judgment, etc.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Lleyam
at 7:36 AM on August 3, 2008
(20 comments)
